The Human Question

The medievals believed that the spheres were the remote source of change on earth and that the spheres moved continuously because angels caused them to do so. If you want to precise, then you must say that this account is not so much supernaturalist as it is preternaturalist, for angelic causality in the physical world is preternatural rather than supernatural. Furthermore, Aquinas would argue that the activity of such an angel would itself need a cause, even though no physical thing "pushes" the angel into "pushing" the sphere. In positing the need for such a cause, they would be reasoning in a manner similar to Aristotle, who saw it fit to posit a first unmoved mover (i.e., a first cause of the unmoved moving-actions of the intelligences that moved the speres). If we assume that it is no embarrassement to medieval metaphysics to claim that the angels' transitive yet unmoved motion upon the sphere(s) needs a cause, then it is no embarrassment to a post-G

Here is a reallllllllllllllllllllllllllly difficult ) for an Aristotelian. The Ari dude maintains that the same form that exists in nature comes through perception to exist in us. Okay, but if we examine how, say, the ear works, we see a transfer from mechanical energy to chemical--or should I say electro-chemical? So when we look at the organ(s) of sensation from a material point of view, it seems like something other than the original form comes to be in us. This sort of problem is the meat and potatoes of representationalism. For if the sort of quality that exists inside the animal in the area where cognitions occur is something different from the sorts of qualities that exist outside the animal, then it would seem to some that only a representation can exist in the brain/mind. My reply is to counter by posing another, even more difficult question to the advocate of representationalism: HOW is it that we're aware of sameness? (as in "the same sound", "the sam

What is the contradictory of the claim that all aspects of all forms of life can be explained as being the result of chance and necessity (henceforth CN)? Teleology. But what kind of teleology? The kind that originates with a First and Ultimate Cause, a being that in some way directs all other beings to their goals? It depends on who is answering the question. Let us suppose what I believe is the case: that one can demonstrate the divine causality of the teleology found in nature. That sort of argumentation belongs to philosophy rather than natural science. If a natural scientist offers the just mentioned demonstration then he would acting as a philosopher rather than a natural scientist. This applies to proponents of ID (intelligent design). When reasoning within the confines of the scientific method, they cannot demonstrate (at least according to the strict sense of the word "demonstrate") that any phenomena or aspects of phenomena are caused by God (nor would som

An interesting question to pose to a proponent of a multiplicity of universes: what would be worse: to destroy an entire non-living universe or to destroy one human life? Why?

Proponents of ID argue by trying to establish that NS is not sufficient to explain how the many species now extent on the earth have arisen from simpler life forms. Some proponents of NS claim that any such argument is illegitimate unless its proponent also provides a plausible alternative explanation of how evolution has taken place. But if the same proponent of NS should also argue that abiogenesis is the result of chance and necessity (rather than design), then it wouldn't this claim likewise be illegitimate unless its proponent provide a plausible explanation of how abiogenesis has taken place?

Dawkins' Selfish Gene (who is this Gene guy, anyways?) has a DNA molecule instrumentalizing the rest of the body... in a manner analogous to how Aristotle, in De sensu (I think) has the common sense instrumentalizing the proper senses. In fact, Ari uses the craftsman analogy to convey this. Dawkins' use of this metaphor amazing because of how it inverts the higher and the lower.